Authentic Torah as opposed to religious con men

Religious teachers are the last people to decide what Torah is. .


When talking about Judaism, they are in fact talking about Jewish culture, not about Torah the Oral and Written Law. To conflate or mix up the two is stupid.

Woe to the innocent fools that go to religious teachers for advice..

To religious teachers  religion is about ritualistic behavior and Jewish culture. This appeals to people that are slightly schizo-typal personalities. To others it is all about culture.

To me Torah is about Torah--the oral and written law. Period.

Too many religious teachers are con men that are talented at getting people to believe there is some good deed involved in giving them money. It is because largely they are born into this scam. Their fathers made money by means of using the Torah, so they have to continue in this fraud.

This is very different from those people who in fact learn and teach Torah for its own sake as you find in Lithuanian kinds of yeshivas. But how to tell the difference I am not sure. Or how to give an accurate sign? I experienced the real thing, authentic Torah-in my first two yeshivas Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. So I should have been able to tell the difference between the real thing and the frauds and scam artists. But I was not. I am overly naive. Here is a good link to an essay on cults
[These are important ideas that were around in the 1960's but that did not stop problems. Warnings that people did not heed.]

Communism.

There is a lot to discuss in terms of Communism. My basic point of view comes from learning Torah. One of the most fundamental aspects of Torah learning in yeshiva is the "three Bava's" which are about civil law. The main idea that you get there is people have a right to their own property.That idea is already in the Ten Commandments but it gets emphasized in the three bava's. Still to defend capitalism is possible from a purely secular point of view. See Michael Huemer's critique of Marxism. As far as it goes in practical terms there is a lot to discuss. I have seen a lot of good that the Soviets did for their own people and a good deal of the problems that came with the system. And the same for the USA. So to argue from empirical evidence or experience or philosophy is possible but to me it is simpler to go by the Ten Commandments "Thou shalt not steal." That is people have  a right to their own property. 

capable women

I have a lot of respect for capable women. I had a girl friend for a brief time in high school, Wendy Wilson who was amazingly smart. I think she got 1198 out of 1200 on her SAT. There have been other girls I have known like that. I have to say that to me a lot depends on the person and their character. And I have known women that were good at being wives and mothers. My Mom for example. She was probably the  best example of what I have ever seen or heard of in terms of being a good mother and wife. But she was not the only one. I remember the wife of Shmuel Berenbaum at the Mir in NY. It was not just that she was supportive of her husband and children but it was almost as if she was carrying the whole yeshiva on her shoulders. This is hard to explain or put into words. My impression is that attitude and intention is everything. A wife and mother who intends to be a good wife and mother can do so in the most amazing fashion. The trouble with feminism is it took away the desire of women to be good mothers and wives.

Medieval Ethics [Musar

Learning Medieval Ethics [Musar] is what Israel Salanter thought would improve people's character. But clearly he was not thinking it is automatic. His goal was for people to come to fear of God and good character traits. He would have been the last person to claim that these result automatically from learning Musar. To me it seems it depends on intention. Why is one learning Musar. The motivation will determine the results. What works best is to learn Musar in the context of a Litvak yeshiva. This is the kind of group activity which brings it into one's self in a permanent way

Black Violence

Alton Sterling

From Unz :

 He was on his back and his right arm was free and had started to move down toward his right pocket.

“Pinned,” in any event, is hardly dispositive [relating to or bringing about the settlement of an issue or the disposition of property]. Not when you are wrestling with a 6’4″, 300 man who is still struggling against you and has a gun in his pocket.

Police either will not be indicted or will be found not guilty if they are.

The author of that comment is anonymous but he clearly has a background in law because of his use of "dispositive." [Maybe the fellow is a lawyer in the US]

Alton Sterling was a trouble maker. He has been arrested many times. The cops know him and now they get radio traffic that he has pulled a gun on someone. The arrive at the scene and talk to "al" and he will not give up his gun. He will not let them pat him down. He begins to struggle and get loud (usual negro behavior). A wrestling match ensues and they try to Taser him but for some reason that does not work. They pull him to the ground to try to restrain him. He begins writhing and fighting and his hand seems to be around the pocket with the gun. One officer yells "GUN" and they fear he is getting a hand on it. The other cop shoots Alton. He should have been shot. It was a 'good' shooting. You cannot let this angry black get to his gun and shoot you. Blacks get shot because they do not follow orders. They do not have any common sense. They think laws are not for them. They are always angry or sullen at the police and start fighting for nothing. Suddenly,...they are shot and the rest of them go ape. They never learn.


Update:

A second video of the incident has been uncovered, and journalist Phillippe Berry has uncovered a version of this film in 720 that strongly suggests that Alton Sterling’s right hand was not tied up in any way at all.

This unsecured right arm, potentially able to reach the weapon in his right front pocket, dramatically raises the threat to officers. This is looking more and more like a clean “good shoot” as more details emerge.

Gwoobus Harmon said...

So many things to say about this incident. I will start with a funny sidebar first.

I had to drive from New Orleans to the northern part of the state on Tuesday. I took a shortcut off of the interstate and hit a U.S. highway to skip the Lafayette leg of the trip and shave off about 45 minutes. While passing through the tiny town of West Baton Rouge on this stretch of highway, I came upon an intersection for local traffic. There was a negro hanging out on the side of the highway and I was stopped at the red light. I witnessed through my rear view mirror him attempt to carjack a vehicle three cars behind me. The snap of the door handle was loud enough that I could hear it even from that distance and with my windows up. The car quickly cut through the center lane and sped away. He then turned and jogged to the vehicles closer to the light, one of which was mine. I went for my weapon just in case. Then the light turned green before he could attempt to enter the other vehicles and everyone exited the intersection. This was around 3 in the afternoon!

It is a special breed down here! 

I do not think there is any such thing as a person being male becoming female or visa versa. The reason is that the sex is written in every DNA molecule in the body.

I do not think there is any such thing as a person being male becoming female or visa versa. The reason is that the sex  is written in every DNA molecule in the body.

In any case this is in the Mishna. One that has intercourse with a person born with both organs is a ספק חטאת. A case of a doubtful sin offering. 

women

Divorce:
Women tend to imagine they have not changed but remain the same attractive 17 year old girls.

A comment on that idea:

They Call Me Tom says:

July 8, 2016 at 1:01 am

Avraham rosenblum says:
“Women tend to imagine they have not changed but remain the same attractive 17 year old girls.”

That is the truth.

Of course, women who marry young and stay devoted to their husband, they always will be the same attractive young woman in their husbands memory.

Single women who put off marriage are not so fortunate, if they ever do marry, their husbands will never have memory of those women’s peak attractiveness, as they’ve never seen it.

Torah and Musar

My impression is that prayers do not do a lot of good unless they come along with Torah. If you want help from heaven what I recommend is Musar and a vocation

true tzadikm

I have become thoroughly disgusted with anything to do with the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on, but I guess I did not express that clearly enough. No offense intended towards the true tzadikm like Reb Nachman. Still plenty of highly questionable doctrines got mixed up with them.
Personal experience to me says a lot more than book reading.  I could go into the theoretical reasons  but all you need to do is to open your eyes to see this. The drawback of personal experience is that it is personal. It is not something you can communicate. It is like the problem that by its very nature perception is individual. 
All one can do to support the point is point out the excommunication that the Gra signed but that  does not seem to provide enough evidence for most people. One could also point out problems that got mixed up with it like the propensity towards bad character traits, but unless one has experienced this first hand he can always think the shiny public image they try to present is accurate,

MDS (Musar deficiency syndrome).

Musar [Ethics] was toned down by the Litvak yeshivas. [Litvak means from Litva or Lithuanian yeshivas].

Even those that accepted it did so in a restrained manner. The Mir in Europe had a 40 min and a 45 min session each day. The Mir in NY had 20 min and 15 min. Nothing like what Reb Israel Salanter was contemplating.

Reb Chaim Soloveitchik did not allow Musar in his Beit Midrash. And in my first yeshiva of Reb Shelomo Freifeld it was absent. Many Litvak's considered it a distraction from Gemara.
 My own learning partner said to me he is "allergic to Musar."

This is a difficult subject because my own experiences with Musar have been varied. At one point I was all 工合 gung ho about it.

My impression is that it is like vitamins. One can overdose. But one can underdone also and have MDS (Musar deficiency syndrome).

I have seen plenty of people with MDS. And it is chronic. It can get so bad that even a small amount of healthy Musar can cause an allergic reaction.  Yet there are plenty of people who have over dosed also. It is hard to find the middle of the road. What tends to put off people I think is the "mashgichim" that make Musar into a business. They are not smart enough to be Rosh Yeshivas yet they are somehow connected by family relations, so they are made into a "Mashgiach." It is hard to find a better group to give Musar a bad name. They are the terror of every yeshiva bachur- student.

Drop the Humanities and Social Studies departments in universities

The entire thesis of Allan Bloom [in Closing of the American Mind]is the crisis of the Enlightenment, and that since the USA is the embodiment of the enlightenment this crisis has come to a climax in the USA itself. The problems he outlined in various chapters were meant as illustrations of a deeper problem that one could not simply put a band-aid on.   Nationalism in the USA is connected with the  Constitution and its principles. So the drawback is that these principles must lead to a crisis by their very nature.

[Actually, I have not reviewed the book for some time. So I am writing from memory.]


But if memory serves correctly about the basic idea of the book then he also hinted to possible solutions.
He directed the book especially towards students of the university. Therefore there is something about education that he was thinking about that could provide the answer. Specifically education in Plato's Republic, the Hebrew Bible, Kant's three critiques and Hegel.
Plus drop the NY Times. Drop modern philosophy into the trash. Drop the Humanities and Social Studies departments in universities into the hell from which they emerged.

Bloom did not mentioned explicitly the Hebrew Bible, but he did say that his close relatives that had a background in it and the Oral Law had a much better and deeper understanding of the meaning of life than people that read the NY Times. He did mention learning the Republic of Plato in terms of a solution. [But I do not see that. The shorter dialogues I think are much more powerful.]

A picture of the moment the Juno probe went into orbit around Jupiter

from here:link

I should mention that the Soviets had great respect for the USA in terms of the research done on Mars. Mars is a lot further out than Venus which the Russians decided to explore. Here getting the probe into orbit around Jupiter is an infinitely more difficult task than anything done before.

Talmud Bava Metzia

I wanted to mention here that to understand a question of Tosphot is often just as hard as it is to understand his answer. So here is my approach to understand the question.

Credit for this idea really goes to David Bronson because it is from him that I learned the method of breaking down a problem in Tosphot into its constituent parts and then putting it back together. I saw him do this numerous times and so I kind up picked up the method.

I had an idea in Bava Metzia page 14b that I would like to share.



Introduction: You have a lender that loaned $120 to a borrower. The borrower has a field worth 100. Then he buys a new field worth 100. Then he sells the first field. The buyer does $20 worth of improvement. Then the borrower sells the second field. Then defaults on the loan. The lender gets the first field. The first buyer then goes to the borrower himself for the improvement that he did and the main price. If the borrower still has nothing he collects from the second field only his main price , not the improvements,



Tosphot is bothered by the question why is there a second field? I suggested perhaps there is a second field because the lender got all of his loan paid back by the first buyer. It occurred to me today to analyse the sugia in the way my learned partner would have done if I would be learning with him. That is to break it down into its constituent parts and then put it back together.

So let's say the lender loaned to the borrower $120. And the borrower had a field worth $100. Then the borrower loses all the money. In the meantime he sold the field. The lender gets the whole field plus the improvements. Then the first buyer gets paid back the main price he paid for the field and its improvements from the lender and if the lender has nothing then he gets the main price from the second buyer. This is all just straight Gemara. I have not said anything new so far. It is just the Gemara puts all this into 8 words " יש לו שבח מן בני חורין וקרן ממשועבדים"
But what surprises Tosphot is this question: why does the lender not get paid back from the second field instead of from the improvements of the first field? In other words what gives him the right to collect improvements done on the second field that have nothing to do with the loan instead of going straight to the second field that was sold by the borrower?

This is the question of Tosphot. I wanted to add that Tosphot's approach is not that of the Rambam and I think Tosphot thus would be disagreeing about the idea of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik if the improvement is considered to a result of the field or the result of the work done on it.

I am in a student dorm so it is hard to concentrate. But the above is the basic idea I wanted to share.

What I could add for the sake of clarity is this. We are not talking about a case when the lender did not collect from the שבח because the Gemara says the first buyer gets paid back for the שבח from בני חורין. So why then did the lender not go directly to the second buyer instead of to the first buyer's improvements?
_________________________________________________________________________________


  בבא מציעא דף י''ד ע''ב מבוא: יש לך מלווה של 120 שקלים. היה ללווה   שדה שווה 100 שקלים. אז הוא קנה תחום חדש בשווי 100 שקלים. אז הוא מכר את השדה הראשון. הקונה עושה 20 שקלים בשווי של שיפור. אז מכר את השדה השני. ואז יש מחדל על ההלוואה. המלווה מקבל את השדה הראשון. הקונה הראשון לאחר מכן אוסף מהלווה עצמו לשיפור שהוא עשה ואת המחיר העיקרי. אם הלווה עדיין אין דבר, אז הקונה  אוסף מהשדה השני רק המחיר העיקרי שלו, לא שיפורים. לתוספות  הטרידה השאלה, "למה יש השדה השני?" הצעתי אולי יש שדה שני כי ההלוואה  משולמת על ידי הקונה הראשון?אבל  הפתעת תוספות היא השאלה: מדוע המלווה לא גובה  מהשדה השני במקום השיפורים של השדה הראשון? במילים אחרות מה נותן לו את הזכות לגבות שיפורים במקום ללכת ישר לשדה השני שנמכר על ידי הלווה? זו השאלה של תוספות. רציתי להוסיף כי לתוספות הגישה אינה כמו הרמב''ם. ואני חושב מחלוקת תוספות והרמב''ם בכך תהיה  הרעיון של רב חיים הלוי אם השיפור נחשב לתוצאה של השדה או התוצאה של העבודה שנעשתה עליו. מה שיכולתי להוסיף למען הבהירות היא זו. אנחנו לא מדברים על מקרה כאשר המלווה לא גבה מן השבח משום הגמרא אומר הקונה הראשון מקבל תשלום בחזרה עבור השבח מבני החורין. אז למה אז המלווה לא ללכת ישירות לקונה השני במקום כדי השיפורים של הקונה הראשון?





I wanted to mention here that to understand a question of Tosphot is often just as hard as it is to understand his answer. So here is my approach to understand the question.   The Rambam apparently thinks the lender can collect from either field and so he must be thinking the שבח on the first field is no less than the second field. Both are משועבד to the lender.


So God granted to me the merit of understanding Tospot 's question.

______________________________________________________________________________
The רמב''ם remains a mystery. The work done by the first buyer and the field contribute to the שבח. It is not the field's alone. Unless the  רמב''ם is  thinking like this. If it is שבח הבא ממילא then it is equal to the second field. If it is improvements like building a fence then it is totally of the first buyer. If it is crops the it is half the buyers and half the field.
__________________________________________________________________________________
That is when it is a fence then the רמב''ם would say the lender must collect from the second buyer  or collect the field from the first buyer but pay for the fence. If it is fruit of trees then in fact the lender can collect from either field. If the improvement is crops then he can collect from either field but pays for half the crops


רמב''ם נשאר בגדר תעלומה. אולי אפשר לומר שהרמב''ם מחזיק ככה: העבודה שנעשית על ידי הקונה הראשון והשדה תורמים את השבח. זה אומר אם זה שבח הבא ממילא, אז זה שווה לשדה השני. אם זה שיפורים כמו בניית גדר אז זה לחלוטין של הקונה הראשון. אם זה יבולים זה חצי מן הקונה וחצי מהשדה. כלומר כאשר השבח הוא גדר אז רמב''ם יאמר המלווה חייב לאסוף מהקונה השני או לאסוף בתחום מהקונה הראשון אבל לשלם עבור הגדר. אם זה פרי של עצים אז למעשה המלווה יכול לגבות באיזה מהתחומים שהוא רוצה. אם השיפור הוא יבולים ואז יוכל לאסוף משני השדות אלא אם הוא אוסף מן הראשון אז משלם עבור מחצית היבולים.

_______________________________________________________________________________

The problem on my explanation of תוספות is if the  whole question revolves around the fact that the lender collects from the שבח instead of the second field then why are the answers of תוספות not related to the שבח alone? Why do they relate also to the field of the first buyer?

הבעיה על ההסבר שלי של תוספות היא אם כל השאלה סובבת סביב העובדה כי המלווה גובה שבח במקום בשדה השני, אז למה לא תהיינה התשובות של תוספות קשורות רק לשבח? למה הן מתייחסות גם אל השדה של הקונה הראשון בעצמו?
______________________________________________________________________________

Answer. In fact, the answers of תוספות do answer the question on שבח but also they have implications for the קרן. For example the answer of תוספות that there is a second field because the first was made an אפותיקי  shows why the מלווה collected from both the first field and its שבח. The other answer that כל שיעבודו עליו also shows why he collected from both the first field and its שבח. Also the answer כלה שיעבודו answer this question.

I would be amiss if I did not explain the kind of damage that religious teachers do to homes and families in exactly the same way as outlined in this article

See these links: Dalrock

original post

Written by my husband, Ken Alexander

Lori's recent viral post struck a chord where women on both sides of the issue lined up to voice their agreement or stark disagreement over a husband's responsibility towards household chores. A few days later, it made it to the Daily Mail news source out of the UK titled Blogger is blasted over 'outdated' advice for a happy marriage as she urges women to 'do your housework cheerfully'. The reason it struck such a viral cord is twofold: First because it did not fit with the progressive women's agenda when Lori teaches that a wife married to a husband unwilling to meet her expectations should just take the high road and love him anyway. Second, because this is one of the hottest sources of frustration for most wives in the modern world. 

In my early years of marriage, Lori was often frustrated with me as her perception was that I was not doing enough to help her. I was at the time struggling to build a consulting firm and my head was stressed to its max as I raced across the US and Europe seeking success and security that comes from a good reputation. Hardly was I focused on housework after working a sixty hour week, and to be honest, I really detested household chores. But I had no issues caring for the kids, or cooking meals, and vacuuming. But dishes and cleaning was not my idea of my role in the relationship. 

Too often the root of this frustration came to Lori after talking to a family member or friend who helped to create the heart of the unmet expectations. I recall having a wonderful weekend with my wife, enjoying each other and the kids, and walking along in harmony together. I left on a trip and just after I got the the hotel in New York City, I grabbed the telephone and dialed the woman I had just spent a great week with. Looking out over Central Park from the 18th story with the lights surrounding it and darkness at the center, Lori answered the phone.

How's it going babes?

Oh, I'm fine?

Did you have a good day?

It was fine.

Well I had a good trip out, and my client put me up in a really nice hotel room overlooking the Park. It's way too expensive, but a really nice view. I wish you were here to share it with me!

Ya, you know Ken, you really don't help me enough around the house. We have four kids now and you know my stomach is not well. You really need to help me more.

Oh, WOW! Where is that coming from? You know I help a lot with the kids, and when you are sick I often cook the meals and take care of things. I don't get what you want from me? What happened between the time I left you this morning and I landed in NY?

I was talking to a friend today and she told me that you really should be helping me more. What I need is more help. My friend's and sisters' husbands help their wives more. 

Wait a second. You are telling me that when I kissed you goodbye today, you were doing great with our relationship and fine with how much I was helping around the house? Somehow between that moment and now you have talked to someone and you are upset over our relationship?  I don't know what to tell you, but I don't understand how your friends have anything to do with us and how we live out our marriage together.

Therapists  are the agents of the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side]. The Satan found it difficult to destroy marriages and families all by himself so he set up his agents to help him in his work.

Nationalism really comes down to a debate between Kant and Hegel. I am on the side of Kant in this, but I think Hegel also had some good points.  I am not sure how to reconcile them. You can see the side of nationalism in Howard Bloom's, The Lucifer Principle. But the draw backs of the system in the USA was brought to print by Allan Bloom's masterpiece, The Closing of the American Mind.

[I should say here that I tend to be on the ide of the Kant-Fries school of thought that you can see in the blog of Kelley Ross] And I also think that my very good impression of Hegeli more based on my  reading of his Logic of the encyclopedia. That is a masterpiece. But the way he elevates the "State" in the Phenomenology is really hard to digest.

I knew  some people that were prime examples of what a man is supposed to be.
My Dad as a father, a husband, a scientist. My teachers in school,: Mr Smart the music teacher, my two Roshei Yeshiva, Reb Freifeld and Reb Shmuel Berenbaum.

I would like to go into detail about each one and what I learned from them. But this minute it is hard to do so because excellence is hard to describe. And what makes it different from mediocrity. Still, God willing I would like to go into detail perhaps in a future comment.

Each one had a great sense of balance and responsibility.

Each one was focused on what they could give to others-not what they could get from others.

I have described my Dad a little in this blog beforehand but he remains the greatest mystery to me.
His major principle was self sufficiency. Do it yourself.  Many people have made it their way of life to collect charity from others and that would have been for my Dad the lowest of the low.

Mr Smart had an amazing sense when it came to music and how to instill appreciation of great music into his students. He got his amateur high school orchestra into a state of excellence. I have no idea how. It was just some kind of excitement about him when it came to music and conducting the orchestra.
Reb Shelomo Friefeld  had a grasp of what Torah is supposed to be about and a way of instilling that into others.

And Reb Shmuel really needs to be understood together with his wife Rebitzin Berenbaum. As a team they made the Mir yeshiva in NY into the most phenomenal kind of place I have seen. The spirit of Torah just permeated the place.

But in the face of these really great people, I am at a loss to describe what it was that pushed them over the line from average into greatness.

Today it is hard to find good people, much less great people. But the main thing about each of the people I mentioned is they loved what they were doing, and they were extremely competent, and  had a tremendous excitement about them in trying to instill this into others.

[Sadly enough I knew a great number of con men that acted the parts, but had no substance. It took me too much time and experience and suffering to realize this. To understand the world you live in it is no enough to have great teachers. You need to experience terrible people also in order appreciate the good ones. And book learning can complement this but it does not replace it.

Sitra Achra (Dark Side) and graves of tzadikim

כישוף witchcraft and occult are  areas of Torah Law that are largely forgotten. Amulets, going to graves of tzadikim, doing different rituals to gain spiritual powers seems to be part and parcel of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on. This is to some degree a surprise because these things are expressly forbidden in the Torah.
These things get to be called doing  a mitzvah in the context of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on

To gain mystic powers would seem to be just what Bilaam was about. He was open to God but also open to the Sitra Achra (Dark Side).

The way this is made to be kosher is by a slight of hand. They do not call it כישוף but rather "תיקונים" But the idea is the same. Instead of doing God's will in the Law it is to gain spiritual powers.
And often it works. People would not be having shamans and rituals of this nature for thousands of years if there was not some effect.

People that you expect will stick up for you, never do. The people you least expect help from are the ones that stick their necks out for you.

Sephardim in America were descendants of the Jews that were thrown out of Spain. 

The original Sephardim in America came from Amsterdam. Sephardim means Spanish Jews. These were what would be called today Ashkenazim-- European Jews not from N Africa 


That is not the same as Sephardim today that got mixed with Jews from North Africa. 





The Jews from N. Africa were intermarried with Arabs from the beginning of the Arab conquest of the Middle East. That is the reason Jews like Maimonides from those areas used the term ס''ט ספרדי טהור To show that they could trace their lineage to Jews. [Or to be a little more exact the term was used to show they use trace their male lineage to Jews. The distinction came about because in the beginning of the Arab Conquest Jewish women were taken as wives by Arab men.]

This is also the reason you find the letters  ס''ט after the signature of people like Bava Sali .


i would not make a big deal out if this if not for the fact that Sephardim make a very big deal out of their claim to be the only true Jews.  This seems to be a case of projection.

The way of marriage was rather well defined in yeshiva. At least in Litvak yeshivas. You studied well and the local homeowners when they saw a good guy would offer a date with their daughter.

This was how it was supposed to work in theory. And in the USA in NY that was how things were. The best guys got offers from the Rosh Yeshiva himself. Lesser guys were offered shiduchim from lesser status people.

And how marriage was, it's obligations and responsibilities, was all spelling out in excruciating detail.

In fact it really was humanly impossible to prepare for marriage. You simply could not go through Kidushin, Ketubot, Nida with the Tosphot, Rif, Rambam, Tur, Shulchan Aruch. Maybe superman could have but no normal person could. I had a great advantage that someone in Torah DeDaat had written a short book with the basic information with some easy Lumdut. So you could get a basic idea of the arguments between the Shach and Taz without having to go through the whole third volume of the Shulchan Aruch By Joseph Karo.

The general amount of dating was six dates before a decision was reached. These were often planned for Motzai Shabat [the night after Shabat.]

Along with this was a fervent desire on the side of the guys and the girls to follow the Law of Moses and the Oral Law and to make it work. [The Oral Law was not looked on as a burden by rather as the Background information needed to make sense of the Law of Moses. It was understood that without background information and  a context one can make any text mean whatever she wants.

Why is this relevant? Because today few people have any idea of what marriage is.

Along with this was the understanding the wife would work during the first year and the husband would continue learning Torah for at least a few years. In theory this was supposed to go on forever but in NY guys often began to work about five or ten years after marriage. The main idea was based on the will of the wife. She was in theory a girl who respected Torah and thus would want her husband to learn Torah as she made ends meet with the kollel check and he own work and support from both sets of parents.

So far I am trying not to let any value judgments get in the way. I just want to explain the system. You don't have to agree with it. You just have to understand the mechanics.
This is all just marriage 1.01. Nothing new here.
My purpose in writing this concerns the next step. What went wrong? This next step is really why I began this essay. But now I want to take  a break and think about what went haywire?
After some thought I have to say the problems began when the Stra Achra [dark side =the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on ] go in the door. Instead of the basic meme of Torah idol worship was placed at the center. That took the focus off of God and the Law of God

 Dr Kelley Ross asked some questions on Kant in his PhD thesis to show unity of consciousness can not be by synthesis. I am wondering then. It seems to me he must be meaning that consciousness is an epi-phenomenon of the ding an sich. Or something like that. I can not tell. 

Jewish achievement in the hard sciences has gone done drastically.
The reason is that for Jews coming over from Europe, there was a kind of synergy between Reason and Revelation.  This was based to a large degree on European Jew's respect for  Maimonides and the general Mediaeval approach which saw a strong connection between faith and reason. So there was plenty of motivation to see great good in STEM. 

Psychology is pseudo science. It is best to take what they say about others as projection of their own nature.
It is a religion that is used to replace lack of faith in traditional religion.
Just for a simple example: what observation would disprove it? Nothing. There is no conceivable observation that could disprove psychology. Therefore it is not falsifiable and therefor pseudo science. QED.
It is mainly for confused people that are searching for answers, or people looking for a way to hurt others. That is,- psychologists are mentally unstable sadists.

Psychology is for people that want the aura of real science to hurt others.
It is attractive for stupid people that are not smart enough to do real science. 

Ideas in Talmud

Ideas in Talmud updated

I added in Hebrew an idea on how to answer a question in Tosphot in Bava Metzia page 14.
It is simply that Tosphot must be comparing the case of  improvements with teh priceof the field.
Clearly if the first buyer is getting from the borrower then there is something that prevented the lender from getting it. Otherwise how could the lender have collected anything from the first buyer? That is what causes Tosphot to think there is something also that prevents the lender from collecting from the second field

r93 r93 in midi  needs editing I am presenting it because it is basically acceptable, and I do not know how to edit it  right now. I hope for God's inspiration.
I borrowed an idea from Mozart to switch to 6/8 time for the final part as Mozart did in a B flat major piece. Mozart did this at least twice.. Once when I was a teenager and was listening on the radio I heard him do this in a D major suite. Also he did this in one symphony. 

I think you have to say in Bava Metzia page 14B that Tosphot is thinking like this: The Gemara says the first buyer collects his  improvement from the borrower and his main price from the second buyer.
There is no way the lender got a field from the first buyer if the borrower had a field that was available. So something has stopped the lender from being able to collect this field of the borrower that the first buyer can collect from. Therefore when the Gemara says the first buyer collects his main price even from a second buyer it must mean the same thing. That is there is something preventing the original lender from collecting from that second field.

______________________________________________________________

Still this is no proof. You could say simply the lender got his own loan repaid by taking the old field from the buyer and then the borrower bought some new property. Then the first buyer gets that property for his main price and improvements and if there is not enough to cover the main price then he goes to the second buyer.
______________________________________________________________________


Back ground information. You have a lender borrower and a buyer from the borrower after the loan was made. The borrower defaults. The lender collects from the borrower and from field sold by the borrower after the loan was made. Then the first buyer collects his main price and his improvement to the field from the borrower and his main price from the second buyer.
Tosphot asks, "Why is there a second field?" That is why did the lender not collect from the second buyer? My question is why is there a question? Maybe he got his whole loan repaid by what he already collected from the borrower and the first buyer? The above paragraph is my answer to this question

.בבא מציעא דף יד '' ע''ב אני חושב שאתה צריך להגיד  כי תוספות חושב ככה. הגמרא אומרת הקונה הראשון  אוסף שבח שלו מהלווה והקרן שלו מהקונה השני. אין דרך שהמלווה יקבל שדה מהקונה הראשון אם ללווה היה שדה שהיה זמין. אז משהו מפסיק את המלווה מלהיות מסוגל לאסוף בתחום זה של לווה כי הקונה הראשון יכול לגבות. לכן כאשר הגמרא אומרת הקונה הראשון אוסף המחיר העיקרי שלו אפילו מקונה השני אז זה בוודאי אומר את אותו הדבר. כלומר יש משהו שמונע את המלווה המקורי מגבייה מאותו השדה שני.
רקע: יש לך לווה מלווה וקונה מהלווה לאחר ההלוואה נעשתה. יש ברירת המחדל של הלווה. המלווה אוסף מהלווה ומשדה הנמכרים על ידי לווה לאחר ההלוואה נעשתה. ואז הקונה הראשון אוספת המחיר העיקרי שלו והשיפור שלו לשדה מהלווה והמחיר העיקרי שלו מהקונה השני. תוספות שואלת, "מדוע יש בשדה שני?" כלומר מדוע המלווה לא לגבות מהקונה השני? השאלה שלי היא למה יש לך שאלה? אולי הוא קיבל ההלוואה כולה שלו נפרעו על ידי מה שהוא כבר לגביה מאותו לווה לבין הקונה הראשון? הפיסקה לעיל הוא תשובתי לשאלה זו.

Physics and Jewish people

 I saw in high school the drive to succeed in the hard sciences for Jewish people was absent. The recognition that the natural sciences is good thing had disappeared.
It is no wonder the absence of Jewish names in the authentic sciences. With no will or desire to succeed, failure is guaranteed..
 The attitude towards the hard sciences that I saw was a surprise to me. With my Dad and his friends working on SDI Star Wars and the U-2, and the kind of success the USA had had in WWII, I thought it was clear  that the authentic sciences were understood to be good things.
Little did I know. Among Jewish people it was the phony sciences of psychology and other delusions that had all the prestige. Whatever recognition of the importance of the real sciences the immigrants from Eastern Europe had brought with them, had disappeared.

People had lost their direction. It took me some time until I discovered the opinion of the Rambam in the Guide about Physics. I had seen hints to this in the works of Musar but I never really got the idea until one day I opened the Obligations of the Heart by Ibn Pakuda.

Why did people lose their bearings?
 The best idea I can come up with is ignorance of Maimonides. The Middle Ages had a kind of balance between Reason and Faith. When that balance was rejected people lost their bearings. But that is my off hand answer right now. This is an interesting question that requires more thought. 

 I saw in high school the drive to succeed in the hard sciences for Jewish people was absent. The recognition that the natural sciences is good thing had disappeared.
It is no wonder the absence of Jewish names in the authentic sciences. With no will or desire to succeed, failure is guaranteed..
I was kind of a newcomer to Beverly Hills. I had grown up in Newport Beach CA. But the attitude towards the hard sciences that I saw was a surprise to me. With my Dad and his friends working on SDI Star Wars and the U-2, and the kind of success the USA had had in WWII, I thought it was clear  that the authentic sciences were understood to be good things.
Little did I know. Among Jewish people it was the phony sciences of psychology and other delusions that had all the prestige. Whatever recognition of the importance of the real sciences the immigrants from Eastern Europe had brought with them, had disappeared.

The basic structure of an authentic Lithuanian yeshiva is two sessions. The morning for what is called in depth learning of the Talmud --"iyun." That means you sit with a learning partner from 10 until 1200 preparing the material. Then at 1200 noon you go to one of the four classes that goes into the material in depth. The afternoon is for fast learning.

In both yeshivas in NY, Chaim Berlin and the Mir, many of the students in the afternoon went to Brooklyn College. The reason is that the main thing in yeshiva is the morning seder (session.)
This is a very good system except it has been largely taken over by people that use it to develop personality cults around themselves and is no longer about learning Torah.

If you are not in the vicinity of an authentic Litvak yeshiva, do not go to a phony yeshiva. Rather at home get one volume of Talmud and one book of Musar [mediaeval Ethics], and have make you own space a "Makom Torah" place of Torah.

The best choice of Musar is to have one book from the actual middle ages, like the Obligations of the Heart, and one like the Level of Man of Navardok in which there is a discussion about trust in God without effort. בטחון בלי השתדלות 

[One is however required to learn a vocation. Learning Torah does not count as learning a vocation.] [I did not want to hear this while in yeshiva. I was happy learning Torah. But I have to admit that my approach was probably a little too much based on lack of awareness of the Rambam's opinion that learning Physics and Metaphysics is a part of the Oral Law. If I had known that I would not have considered learning Physics as "Bitul Torah,"  wasting time that could be used for learning Torah

[If you have not gone through the entire Old Testament and two Talmuds at least once then you should have set aside each day about an hour for going through them page by page word for word. Do not worry if you do not understand. What you think you do not understand goes in subconsciously anyway.]

If you are not near a Litvak yeshiva then at least get Rav Shach's Avi Ezri which is the most easy to understand approach to learning in depth. You could try to do it on your own  learning Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's Chidushei HaRambam.  That book is an important classic.   

The basic structure of an authentic Lithuanian yeshiva is two sessions. The morning for what is called in depth learning of the Talmud --"iyun." That means you sit with a learning partner from 10 until 1200 preparing the material. Then at 1200 noon you go to one of the four classes that goes into the material in depth. The afternoon is for fast learning.

In both yeshivas in NY, Chaim Berlin and the Mir, many of the students in the afternoon went to Brooklyn College. The reason is that the main thing in yeshiva is the morning seder (session.)
This is a very good system except it has been largely taken over by people that use it to develop personality cults around themselves and is no longer about learning Torah.

If you are not in the vicinity of an authentic Litvak yeshiva, do not go to a phony yeshiva. Rather at home get one volume of Talmud and one book of Musar [mediaeval Ethics], and have make you own space a "Makom Torah" place of Torah.

The best choice of Musar is to have one book from the actual middle ages, like the Obligations of the Heart, and one like the Level of Man of Navardok in which there is a discussion about trust in God without effort. בטחון בלי השתדלות 

That is a concept I was never able to act on except twice. Once when I went to yeshiva in NY in the first place. The only other time was when I went to Israel. Besides that I have found it hard to trust in God without any effort.

r89 G Minor 6-8 time  r89 in midi  r89 nwc

Art at its best in to capture something transcendent in Nature.

Art at its best in to capture something transcendent in Nature. It is not to copy it, but to capture its essence. Schopenhauer went into this in . 



The idea is that the transcendent numinous reality has existence that depends not on the subject nor object. But it can be perceived by intention. [I do not know if that is how Dr Ross would put it.

Early medieval Europe.

Early medieval Europe. There was something definitely special going on then. The question then is how to deal with the problem that such an society entailed. How to combine it with the better aspects of the Enlightenment? My suggestion is at least a re-emphasis on the great books of the time.

 Also classical education which was the basic books of Aristotle on Logic plus the few others books from late Rome--plotinus.

Personally I feel there is a lot to gain from both the Mediaeval period and the Renaissance.

Jewish people are already aware of the importance of the Rishonim, the Rambam and Tosphot in particular.
For Jewish people education was already spelled out by the Rambam: Torah, Physics, Metaphysics. By the last two he was referring to two large sets of books by Aristotle. Today I would have to say modern Physics would have to be in place of Aristotle's Physics.


I should mention that this kind of education is not too far away from what I was doing anyway in high school. I was certainly interested in the mediaeval period though my time was limited because of school work.

r91 F minor  r91 in midi r91 nwc

Authentic Lithuanian Yeshiva.

A healthy yeshiva operates through no universal methods, but several general principles, and these become adapted in many specific ways. One way is culling. Any successful yeshiva has internal gatekeepers who drive out the people of lower moral standards, ability and behavior or those who are merely genetically incompatible. The sane form of this is exile; the insane form is  not doing it.

There is a side idea: Don't join a group of crazy people even if their doctrines sound nice.

r90 slightly edited. This probably needs a lot of editing but  if I do not put it here I can easily just forget about it. And unless God grants to me some kind of inspiration I have no idea how to edit it.

Musar is the glue

I realize my life and the meaning of my life is fragmented. If I look at all the pieces of the puzzle some are more well put together than others. But the whole thing is like pieces of a puzzle when you open the box. It looks like one big mess.
It is like when I was following the path of Musar of Reb Israel Salanter which in a nut shell is the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule then all the pieces fit together. That is Fear of God and working on having good character (as the Torah defines good character) --as like the mortar for the bricks, the cement, the glue.


The problem was accepting a different "meme" unit of social information. The Torah is explicit about what matters and what does not. The trouble is that as long as I was part of the Mir Yeshiva in NY there was a kind of glue that held things together. Learn Gemara and Musar. Though I think Reb Nachman was a great tzadik, but getting involved in the group that supposedly follows him was exchanging the meme of the Torah for an alternative meme.
Besides that it had the problem of ignoring the signature of the Gra on the second excommunication.


What this means for people that are not in the Mir yeshiva is simple. No matter where you are you can work on the exact same things: (1) Fear of God (2) Good Character. These are available at all times to everyone.

The best ways to go about however is not clear to me. But the goal is clear.

I am not saying the books of Musar are perfect. Rather what I am saying is that without Musar it is all too easy to get the meaning of life and of Torah mixed up.

 Sparta. It is hard to know why Plato thought it was so great. Perhaps he was thinking of the fact that Athens at the time was under Spartan rule and was doing fairly well.

Perhaps he was thinking of a kind of synergy between Athens and Sparta? After all that is what existed in his time and it was the time that he and  Aristotle wrote and many other advances came about.


[To see a thorough account of the affinity Plato had for Sparta see Karl Popper's, The Open Society and its Enemies]

r87 G Minor edited

Allen Bloom called tendency to self destruct "the crisis of the Enlightenment." He also noted the anti Enlightenment began almost as soon as the Enlightenment itself. He was thinking along the lines of the Republic of Plato a being the solution. That seems to indicate Sparta. Not that Sparta was all that much like the Republic but that is certainly where the sympathies of Plato were.

If the goal is to save Western Civilization then it is important to focus on the principles involved, not on who is saying them. If S. Miller [an advisory to Trump] helps in this regard then he should be complimented. What people ought to do is focus on the prize--the presidency-- because you can be assured that the Left is extremely focused on that. If the right will not concentrate to the same degree we are likely to lose everything. Civilization itself.

The intellectual basis of the Left is the group--Rousseau's "general will." This was meant to replace religion and the rule of kings and princes. This is opposed to John Locke's individual rights. The issue is where is the center of gravity? The individual, or the super-organism.  In John Locke, the individual gives up some rights in order to form a community. In Rousseau the community is the source of rights. The French Revolution as founded on the ideas of Rousseau, and the American revolution was founded on John Locke.  This blog  amerika. noticed that both seem to have limitations.
I there suggest a kind of return to the Middle Ages where both the Torah and Kings had a kind of balance of Power.



[You have to read between the lines of John Locke to see his approach. He does not come out and say this openly.]


What I think is missing here is the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. There is no liberty without the Law of God.

In any case what is missing is not just the law of God, but also Hobbes--civil society. That is the area that government is meant to protect-- but not interfere with.
It seems to me the area of Torah is in this area of civil society where people accept voluntary acceptance of  the Laws of the Torah.

See the history of Spain and the Martyrs of Cordoba.

When Muslims get over a  certain % things go downhill quickly. Below a certain % they are the best mannered. Then people think well of them. Then the % grows and jihad starts with the youth  and the parents saying "we can't control our children. They are doing these violent acts on their own."  Then the % grows and you have a Muslim country. This is a common thread of how they took over many countries. See the history of Spain and the Martyrs of Cordoba.

Marriage is the most delicate of human affairs.

Very often women need help with household chores. It is a good, an important thing to help anyone that needs help. But making her think the chores are the man's responsibility, begins a slippery slope towards a shifting of roles.

Marriage is the most delicate of human affairs. When religious people stick their noses into it, they only spoil it.

The most dangerous to marriage and happiness are religious teachers. There is little they touch that they do not ruin.

I have a problem with twisting the ideas of medieval scholars to make them fit with modern conceptions.  With no new evidence all that matters is how rigorous ones logic is. And in moral affairs there can not be new evidence. You can not derive an "ought" from an "is." Moral proposition requires moral principles that can not be derived by empirical evidence.
And when it comes to rigorous logic,  people have been denying the validity of reason or using circular reasoning since the end of the Middle Ages. They simply can not compare with intellectual giants. This is in the Jewish world also in terms of whom we call "Rishonim" medieval Authorities.) However where you can criticize medieval people is in the axioms.  Sometimes they use beginning principles that are self evident. That is the only place where they are sometimes weak. But even there if one is willing to dig deep he can find the kernel of truth in what they wrote.

I heard this idea of the importance of Rishonim from Motti Friefeld [the son of Shelomo Friefeld] and from what I have seen later it makes sense. It is the general approach of Authentic Litvak Yeshivas and by examination of Rishonim as compared to achronim it is easy to see that this approach is correct. [However some achronim are useful in order to help understand the Rishonim.  Personally I have always loved using the Maharsha in that way, and in later years I found Rav Shach's Avi Ezri to be very helpful in that way.

A nice video that applies to yeshiva

The yeshivas know this. You don't learn a vocation producing something that people need.
What you are saying when you go to yeshiva is I want to world to create  a job for me.

Th reason yeshivas are opening up is the bosses are saying if you can get the money out of these stupid kids parents and out of the State of Israel, then come and teach here. All you will do at the best if you get hired is to re-teach stupid "vorts" [stupid homilies] on the Parsha and tell everyone how they need to support you because it is the greatest mitzvah to support yeshivas. [Which it is not. To be paid for learning Torah is against the Torah].
And they will sell you out for a dime when it come time you need their help.
If they are willing to sell out the Torah,  why do you think they will refrain from selling you out?


And what will you learn? You will learn to blame the goyim and the State of Israel for your lack of success in life.
And you are going to want them to pay you for their supposed guilt. If you are baal teshuva and you believe them when they make believe they are your friends you are dork.

All religious teachers do is lie in order to get other people's hard earned money. And then claim that is what the Torah says.

If we would be talking about places that learn Torah for its own sake then none of this would apply. But the reality is they are about using Torah for a vocation even the kollel's. After all they are getting paid for learning -- are they not?

Religion is virtue Olympics

Religion is virtue Olympics. First one has to prove how strict he is in rituals. They he gets the scepter to rule over everyone else. The religious teachers are the equivalent of of the taskmasters that were set over the Jews in Egypt. The only difference is the religious teachers claim the authority of the Law of Moses to enslave the Jews. And the only way one can tell this is a deception is by knowing the Law oneself.

So learning Torah has two advantages. One is to know and to fulfill the law of Moses. The other is so that one can not be "taken for a ride" by fraudsters that claim to know it and interpret it in such a way that basically means everyone should be their slaves.

Stand against Tyrants and Tyranny!

Just to be clear I hold from the Oral and Written Law of Moses very highly, but I do not think the people that claim to teach it are honest. And the proof is in the pudding. Just compare their actions -not their words with the Law of the Torah and you will see there is no correspondence.

Of course if we were talking about the great Litvak Yeshivas, like Ponovitch or Brisk I would not say this. But the real authentic yeshivas are the exceptions not the rule. In the authentic yeshivas people certainly learn true virtue.--at least to the degree that virtue is teachable.

r87 mp3  r87 midi  r87 nwc

This might need a lot of work. I had to finish it fast because of all the crazy interruptions in the place I am staying. I was afraid if I do not finish it fast, it would not get finished at all. Still it seems to have some merit and I hope God grants to me some idea of how to edit it.

Pick your friends wisely. Pick your enemies even wiser.

Pick your friends wisely. Pick your enemies even wiser.

Falling into some group is not something that just happens on its own. One makes a choice. And then discovers it is easier to fall into something than it is to all out of it.

A good deal of my own enemies,  chose to be enemies for reasons unknown to me. I did not choose them. They hurt me and my family in secret as much and as often as they could all the time pretending to be my friends.

Some kinds of evil are easy to identify. Muslims clearly want to kill all infidels.  But there are other groups whose evil is harder to identify as they pretend to be friends. [I have found religious teachers to fit into this later category.]


Winston Churchill once said, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a positive reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." The logic of this should be obvious. Churchill recognized (rightly) that maintaining Britain's liberal order was worth allying with the devil. No one went to war with the Nazis just because of the tactics they used. They primarily did it because they couldn't stand the idea of living under a Nazi regime. I can't stand the thought of living under the "quasi-totalitarian"  regime of religious teachers. They have shown themselves to be predictable as enemies towards moral and normal Jews. They think their black clothes gives them some kind of air of superiority. 

 Their opening gambit is to throw normal Jews  under the bus, so the enemy will appreciate the fact that they have shown themselves to be  reasonable fellows who follow principles.

The kinds of damage religious teachers did to me and my family were because we were not aware of them as enemies. If we had been aware they never could have succeeded in inflicting the kinds of damage that they did.

What sincere people that love the Law of Moses, the Oral and Written Law could do would be to make  a clear distinction between themselves and religious teachers. I have said this over before to people but my suggestion was ignored until now. If people understood my point they would make a clear difference between religious teachers and the Litvak Yeshiva World (good - as long as they keep the religious teachers out.)